Our third and fourth days in Zonguldak are devoted to landuse and questionnaire surveys in the 19 neighborhoods of Zonguldak. I joined the team which surveyed the neighborhood where TTK-the state owned mining enterprise-was located back in the 1800s. Working under difficult conditions, the enterprise developed its own housing units and social facilities and contributed to the birth of a mining city.
Life in the mining city
The neighborhood has a French touch as it was constructed by the French living in this area. It locates the social facilities and French style living units provided to the employers working at TTK. The site is now a historical protection area.
The differences in the housing types reflected the hierarchical social structure, composed of managers, engineers and miners.
The centre of the neihgborhood is designed to accomodate a big park and other social facilities, including a tennis courts and a club house by the sea, which today are still in use by the city dwellers.
A few living units of TTK had been sold in the process of the downsizing of the enterprise in the 1990s and were renovated badly before the neighborhood had been assigned as a site of historical and natural protection.
The privatised properties of TTK, renovated by their new owners.
The neighborhood had seen other social housing developments in the 1980s, thanks to housing cooperatives formed by the workers to solve their housing needs
As with all mining cities, the city of Zonguldak has a tragic history. The memorial of miners is dedicated to the miners of Zonguldak who died of mine accidents from 1875 to 2013. Our sorrow was deepened when we saw the memorial in a very bad condition.
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